A Daesh terrorist claims to have been trained in Turkey before acting in Iraq

The Central Investigation Court of the Presidency reported on Wednesday that two Daesh terrorists were arrested in the course of military operations in Baghdad and Al-Anbar.

The official text of the Iraqi judiciary said "the first suspect confessed to belonging to the ISIS terrorist gangs, and detonated several explosive devices against the Iraqi Armed Forces." The most notable fact is that the terrorist admitted he "received administrative and military training courses in Turkey before starting his actions in Iraq,” the Iraqi judiciary said.

The official statement also detailed that “the second terrorist confessed before the investigating judge of his ISIS affiliation and the setting up of fake checkpoints in Haditha, Anbar Province, that were targeting civilians and security forces.”

The Central Court also noted that "“the confirmation and arrest of the accused come in accordance with the provisions of Article 4 of the Anti-Terrorism Law No. 13 of 2005", as reported by the Al-Masdar News.  

The capture of insurgent elements is part of the operation launched on Monday by the Iraqi Armed Forces against the jihadist organization in four locations in central and northern Iraq. "The troops of the Iraqi Army, supported by the Federal Police and fighters of the Popular Mobilization Forces (Shiite militias linked to Iran) have launched a four-front offensive against the members of Daesh in the provinces of Salah al-Din and Diyala," the Iraqi Ministry of Defense said in an official statement.  

One of the interventions took place along the administrative border between the Governorates of Diyala and Salah al-Din, while another began along the border with Syria in Al-Anbar Governorate.

Daesh is taking advantage of Iraq's instability, caused by several fronts such as the massive and violent citizen protests (with confrontations with the Police and Armed Forces) against the institutional and political corruption installed in the nation and against the degradation of public services and the lack of employment in the face of the economic crisis; also derived from the opposition of the Iraqi population to the interference in the internal affairs of the country by the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, rejecting the US military presence on the ground and the Persian interference through Shiite formations such as the People's Mobilization Forces (PMF); and also because of the current health crisis being suffered all over the world due to the spread of the COVID-19 disease, which has already left hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of people affected all over the world (92 deaths and more than 2000 cases diagnosed in Iraq).
 

In recent weeks, the jihadists have intensified their attacks, taking advantage of the mobilization of Iraqi troops in urban centers to fight the coronavirus, which has made them leave the anti-terrorist action behind, and also benefiting from U.S. soldiers' retreat to bases of the international coalition fighting jihadism as a result of the offensives by pro-Iranian Shiite militias; These offensives were mainly triggered by the military operation carried out by the US Army on January 3 that killed Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Forces (international division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran), through a drone attack near the Baghdad airport, where Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a leader of the PMF, was also killed; a planned offensive in response to the attack on a military base in Kirkuk that resulted in the death of a US civilian contractor. This action against the leader of the Revolutionary Guard and the leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces triggered an angry response from the Shiite sphere and the Iranian authorities, based on multiple attacks on military infrastructure of the international coalition in Iraq and even on the assault on the US Embassy in the Iraqi capital.

Therefore, Turkey seems to be pursuing an expansionist strategy in the Middle East and North Africa. The Turkish nation led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan is well known for acting in Syria and Libya, where it is pursuing its own interests.  

In Syria, for example, he raided the Turkish-Syrian border with his troops to establish checkpoints and harass the Kurds with the excuse of persecuting the Kurds after accusing them of terrorist acts in the south of Ottoman territory. These positions were established after reaching an agreement with the US State Department last year to establish a security zone in northern Syria, from which the Kurds were to leave at the demand of Erdogan and where thousands of Syrian refugees who fled the civil war in Syria were to be sent. This was a controversial move as it meant Trump's Executive would abandon Syrian Kurdish groups such as the People's Protection Units (YPG), integrated into the rival Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to their fate, circumstantially associated with President Bachar al-Asad to drive out the common Turkish enemy despite the fact that they were confined to opposition to the official Syrian regime, and that they were instrumental in the defeat of Daesh in Syria a year ago, when the Al-Baghouz bastion fell.  
 

A war in Syria that confronts Bachar al-Asad's government, strongly supported by Vladimir Putin's Russia, with the insurgents entrenched in Idlib, where Turkey positioned itself to the point of demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops after a failed summit between Ankara and Moscow last February. The Al-Asad Administration has been arguing that the objective in the Arab country's war conflict is to put an end to the jihadist terrorism, in the face of a counter-insurgent pole and a new opposition represented by Turkey's interests.  

Iran, Turkey and Russia are sponsoring the peace process in Astana, where they have even offered to mediate to solve the differences between Ankara and Damascus, as a result of the renewed tension in northwest Syria last February, solved by the ceasefire between Turkey, the supporter of the Syrian opposition, and Russia, Al-Asad's partner, implemented on March 6. The ceasefire continues, despite sporadic violations and the increasing pressure on Syria, which is not respecting the very difficult situation in the world with the coronavirus pandemic.

Turkey is also involved in a war such as the one in Libya, in which it took part by the Government of National Accord (GNA) after the agreement signed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj. A GNA, officially recognized by the United Nations (UN) since 2016 and based in the capital of Tripoli, which is facing the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar, representing the eastern government of Tobruk, which seeks to end the pole of Tripoli power on the pretext that it is hosting terrorist elements in that area and wants to reunify the nation to carry out a subsequent democratic process. Meanwhile, Fayez Sarraj's Executive presents itself as the legitimate power of Libya in the face of what they consider a coup d'état.  
 

Turkey is using Syrian mercenaries in Libya's civil war, brought from Syria to Turkey to be trained and then sent to the North African country, as it has been reported in several media in recent weeks. These militiamen include terrorist agents linked to branches of jihadist groups such as Al-Qaeda.